MURRIETA: SCHOOL ASSEMBLY HIGHLIGHTS BIKE SAFETY
STUDENTS BRUSH UP ON BIKE SAFETY

Helmet giveaway is part of assembly staged by Schwinn at Buchanan Elementary School

MURRIETA 
The average fifth-grade boy has a lot on his mind. Typically, bicycle safety is not one of them.

But for 100 fifth-grade boys at Buchanan Elementary School, bike safety was at the forefront of their thoughts on Thursday afternoon as Schwinn Bikes and the ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation, partners in the Helmets on Heads initiative, staged an assembly in the school’s multipurpose room.

“We’d love to work with anybody that’s as passionate about bike safety as we are,” said Carolyn Conners, a representative for Schwinn at the assembly.

To drive home the message, free helmets were issued and then fitted for all of the boys in attendance.

Joseph Vasquez, 10, clutched a clear bag with his new Schwinn Thrasher helmet. It adds to his collection.

“This is my third one, actually,” he said.

But a few years ago, none of them were strapped to Joseph’s head when he encountered what he called “a big crack in the street.”

What happened next is not all that unusual.

“I was going to make a turn and I flipped all the way over,” he said.

ThinkFirst Executive Director Debby Gerhardstein gave the audience a graphic demonstration of the protective qualities of bike helmets — first, dropping a cantaloupe encased in a helmet (no damage), then letting the cantaloupe fall to the floor with no protection. As she picked up the fruit, a neat crack was evident at one end, with the orange-colored pulp showing through.

Schwinn also gave away two bikes, and Micheal Dominguez was one of the lucky winners.

“As many raffles that I do,” he said, “I never win.”

Michael said the bike, which Schwinn promised to deliver to him later, will come in handy.

The wheels popped on his old bike, he said.

“We threw it away,” he said. “It was done.”

In California, a state law has been in effect since 1994 requiring all bicycle riders younger than 18 to wear helmets. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have similar laws, as well as more than 200 localities around the country.

Gerhardstein and John Buchanan, of the North County Fire Protection District, emphasized to the young cyclists the need to wear a properly fitted helmet.

A helmet should lie flat on the head and cover all but one to two finger widths of the forehead. And the sidestraps should form a V around the ears. Riders should be able to fit no more than one or two fingers between their chin and the straps.

“That’s why we’re here today,” Gerhardstein said. “I don’t want to see any of you in our emergency rooms. I want you to be out on your bikes having fun.”